Under the Blacklight
by stripedheart
Summary: It's been such a long time since you've felt better. Breyton. Series of one-shots.
1. Breakin' Up

_I don't know, I just felt like writing this. Set to Rilo Kiley's_ Under the Blacklight_._

_Breakin' Up._

Brooke swung her feet idly over the smooth water below her. It rolled gently, carrying away brown leaves and shards of green grass, the muddy water moving and flowing and always coursing. She wanted to dip her feet into it, but it was too far down. She had always been slightly shorter than average, and it had never bothered her. It was just another challenge to overcome, another fact to face. They made her stronger.

She wiped a finger under her eye, trying to smear away the mascara lines she knew were there. She didn't know she had been crying until she'd felt the warm wetness cascading down her cheeks. Streaks of black stained her fingers and she wiped against her eyes urgently, trying to make the marks disappear.

She was fifteen and it was her first real break up.

Her shiny golden top picked up the moon's rays as she sat in half-darkness watching shapes move beneath her feet. Every now and then a car roared above her, clunking and bouncing across the bridge she hid under. There was a stick poking into her back and she was sure there was dirt on her new jeans. She had discarded her heels on the side of the road when she climbed down. She just wanted to be alone. Or that's what she thought, until a warm body landed beside her.

Petyon was always calm and in control now. Brooke remembered when she hadn't been, because she had been there to pick up the pieces that Peyton had cut off from herself. They were still together, still best friends forever, and Brooke knew they always would be. Peyton held out her pale hand over Brooke's lap without speaking, let it hover there until Brook reached up and grasped it. They sat there in silence until Brooke sighed. Peyton looked over and brought up her hand, wiping at the last bit of black from beneath Brooke's dark eyes. Brooke looked up at her with sad, puppy dog eyes.

"He's just a boy." Peyton told her. She offered the brunette a soft, gentle smile. "You still got me." She told her cheerfully. Brooke gave her a tear-stained smile and squeezed her hand once, looking away. Peyton paused. "Brooke?" The brunette didn't answer. Peyton reached out and cupped the girl's jaw in her hand, turning her face toward her. She met her eyes and spoke seriously. "You've always got me, you know."

"But do I really?" Brooke asked hesitantly, her hand still wrapped up in Peyton's, her face in the other girl's hand. Peyton scrunched her eyebrows in confusion. Brooke moved instinctively, pressing her lips against her best friend's before she could think of anything else to do. It was warm and sweet, and sticky with a hint of the beer Brooke had been drinking. Peyton's mouth was warm and soft and tender against her own. It made her stomach flip flop until she forgot to breathe and she closed her eyes to savor the feel. Peyton, hand still in Brooke's and the other on her face, kissed her back and Brooke forgot all about boys and broken and mascara lines.

When Peyton pulled back, she was breathing a little harder and she kept her face close, under that dark bridge with the water running beneath their feet.

"Yeah, you do."


	2. Dejalo

_Dejalo._

They're sixteen and it's dark and warm in the hole in the wall Mexican resturaunt they've claimed as their own. They probably shouldn't have ever gone in there, but Peyton's dad is never around and Brooke's parents might as well not be. They order greasy, cheesy burritos and sip at warm cokes, their sides touching as they watch couples in ther twenties slide to sensual Latin music. They definitely shouldn't have been in there, but there was no one to tell them that.

The guy standing by the door had leered at them when they walked in, Brooke dressed to the nines as usual and Peyton in beat up jeans and a t-shirt. Peyton had eyed him down and Brooke had pretended not to notice. They found their booth- they had claimed it their's two months ago when they first stumbled into the place- and slid into the slick booths. Now they watch the heat and the daze and push through the feelings that run through their blood. Brooke entwines her fingers with Peyton's and they sit in silence, because they don't have words for this anymore.

It happened once, under a bridge more than a year ago and they don't talk about it, because they're both terrified of losing the other. Peyton cuts off those feelings and Brooke buries them as far as she can. But in this muffled room in the shadows with the heat dripping off the ceiling and radiating off each other and the leftover adrenaline from sneaking out, Brooke forgets to be scared for a little bit. She scoots back farther into the dark wood booth in the far corner of the poorly lit resturaunt and pulls Peyton with her. The blonde turns, curious at first, but she quickly shifts into knowing because she's always been able to read Brooke like she was another part of herself. She doesn't hesitate when they're both in the dark, just leans forward and kisses her for the second time in their lives.

They're better at this now. Brooke especially after a year of practice in the form of dazed hook ups. Peyton even knows how to angle her mouth and slip her tongue into Brooke's mouth in that dank booth. It hurts to think that they learned how with other people, when the one they love is willing and ready, but sometimes fears of loss are too deep set and hesitation guides their every action. When Peyton slides her hand onto Brooke's thigh, the brunette lets out a breath of air. And when the blonde kisses her jaw, Brooke is so caught up in the moment that her phone rings for a few seconds before she even realizes it. Peyton's kisses burn like nothing she's ever felt.

She doesn't want to answer, but Peyton stops and Brooke is embarrassed and scared and so she flips it open with shaking hands and breathes out a nervous "hello?"

It's her mom, who decides to grow some maternal instincts right then and there and demands her home. Brooke is too shaken to disagree, so she just mutters an okay and tells Peyton with her eyes. Her lipgloss is smeared as she walks past the same guy at the door and he leers again, but Brooke feels aged and pained so she just looks back blankly. Peyton has her hand, but she releases it when they reach the parking lot. They don't talk the whole ride home and Brooke cries herself to sleep that night because she aches more than anything. Because Peyton's kisses still burn across her neck and she can almost _feel_ the girl's tongue on her own.

They're getting too old to keep playing games of hide and seek.


	3. Smoke Detector

_Smoke Detector._

When Lucas Scott enters their life, they feel it shift like tectonic plates in an earthquake or fumbling attempts at rollerskating. He glides between them and they shake like trees who have lost their roots. For the first time in their lives, they cannot see the same feelings echoed in each other's eyes. They've become too good at hiding them. They've become too good at hiding _themselves_. They've kissed twice and it lingers under the surface when they sit in silence, it brims to the edge when they sleep side by side, it burns when Brooke leans in for a hug and Peyton holds her tight. They don't know why they're hesitating now, just that fate seems to have it in for them whenever they near the line they need to cross and they've been burned too many times. Lucas is unblemished. He is gorgeous and sweet and he flirts with them both. He can't have them both.

When Brooke steps into Peyton's bedroom, the blonde knows immediately what the other girl has discovered. Brooke only confirms her belief when she starts off snarky and leads into anger. And though Peyton knew it was coming, she didn't expect it like this. She didn't expect it to actually _hurt_. But the thing is, she had wanted to hurt Brooke. The girl she loves was dating the boy she thinks she might be able to. It was more than she could stand and when she made that break between her and her best friend, when she kissed the boy she can never love but that she is terrified Brooke will, she still thought she could never lose her girl. She was protecting herself, but in a twisted way she is trying to protect _them_. She thinks Brooke will forgive her. She thinks by taking Lucas, Brooke will have to keep loving her, because Peyton cannot love Lucas herself.

When Peyton says her name, low and soft, admitting her fault, something in Brooke's eyes breaks and Peyton sees what shone right in front of her all along, because suddenly it _isn't there_. That twinkle she thought was just something special about Brooke is doused in a moment of harsh truth. She feels it like an echo and that terrifies her down to her core, to have something for so long and suddenly realize she never really knew it at all. To take something from Brooke that she never realized she was giving. Brooke leaves and Peyton pauses. She can't stop herself from chasing the brunette down the hall. She stops her by the front porch because Brooke is crying too hard to move.

"I didn't want to hurt you." The blonde says. But maybe she did, because Brooke had managed to yank the heart right out of her chest.

"Why are you telling me this, Peyton?" Brooke almost begs, and there is wetness all in her eyes that kills Peyton, because she's never been able to stand seeing the girl cry. "I don't _care_." She professes, but Peyton can see the hurt tearing straight through her ex-best friend's eyes and she regrets it all. Every action, every kiss, she hates it all. She thought...

"Brooke, I..." She is at a loss, but Brooke has stopped crying, has stopped feeling and the empty echoes in her eyes cut off any thought Petyon held.

"What?" Brooke is cruel suddenly, something Peyton has seen inflicted on numerous people but never expected to see turned on her. "You want _this_?" She asks, hurt and tears and _hate_ in her voice. She pushes her hands on Peyton's shoulders and slams her hard against the wall. Then, she kisses her for the third time in their lives, with passion and anger and need and loss. She threads her fingers through Peyton's curls tightly, pulls her down, and kisses her until their teeth click. Peyton has to give it right back, because it's _Brooke_ and she's needs this, she thinks. Their bodies collide and press angrily, with terror and passion and the scariest sense of being complete _strangers_, until Brooke yanks back fiercely, freeing her hands from Peyton's hair.

"Well, you lost it." She says. She walks out the door. Peyton slides to the floor.


	4. Angels Hung Around

_Angels Hung Around._

It is summer and they have healed. Sometimes, Brooke can't look into Peyton's eyes because she sees things there she regrets. And sometimes, when she falls asleep beside the girl, she dreams about Peyton kissing her under a bridge with sweet innocence, kissing her in a dark booth with new knowledge. Then, it turns into a nightmare and Brooke is tearing apart their love, pressing teeth to teeth and bruising lips because she hurts and she needs to hurt Peyton, too. She wakes up in the blonde's arms and hurries out of bed before Peyton can wake, before they can rebuild the epic love they always had, before Peyton can go back to loving her the way she still loves the blonde. She feels like she doesn't deserve Peyton's love, but she also thinks, in an utterly confusing way, that Peyton's doesn't derserve her love either. She tried once, with Lucas, to draw the blonde's attention, her jealousy, her want, but it backfired spectacturaly and Peyton scrambled for the wrong person. She can't build it all up again to have it ignored and yanked out from under her.

What she doesn't realize is that they don't need to rebuild it. It never went away. Peyton watches her sleep, curls her arms around the brunette and always wakes up in an empty bed. They are half rebuilt. They have constructed the outside, but they are terrified of building up the inside- the part that kept them so close. The problem is, none of it ever went away. They hid it and tried to rip it apart, only to end up stowing it where they can't recognize it. It appears in dreams, in warm arms, in long car rides and boat trips.

They are eating dinner on Brooke's balcony one night in the warm summer air with the crickets twirping beneath them when Brooke says the words she feels with hesitation. She is warm and solid and feels like the world has stilled beneath her fingers. She's been drinking.

"I love you, P. Sawyer." She admits mildly, sipping at a glass of red wine. Peyton raises an eyebrow her way and takes a sip of her own wine. There are still shields and they work around them, they work through them. They still speak subtext fluently and they are not ready to give up.

"I love you, B. Davis." Peyton responds, stressing the "you". It's a step and they take it so carefully, so gently, as if they are both going to break with the wrong words, the wrong looks. "Now get me a pizza, woman." She says, throwing up a hand and referencing an inside joke, her words a little buzzed. Brooke laughs, that wonderful twinkling laugh that makes Peyton smile, and sets down her glass.

"I think you are drunk." She says a little dizzily herself. They find their way into her bedroom, stumbling and laughing in the huge empty house. Peyton wraps her fingers between Brooke's and doesn't think of Lucas. She falls onto the bed, it's half her's anyway she claims, and in a mess of limbs Brooke lands on top of her. They don't speak. They are suddenly close to sober, they are suddenly too close to each other. Brooke wants to kiss the girl beneath her, taste the hint of red wine and sweetness, but they are still too stretched. Their bond is still too fragile. Peyton's eyes are big and nervous and it _hurts_. Shared memories course between them.

Brooke rolls off the blonde. She pulls her close with one arm and Peyton curls into her. They fall asleep together. There are not healed, but they are healing.


	5. Give a Little Love

_Give a Little Love._

When Peyton says goodbye to Brooke the next summer, she can hardly believe a year has passed them by. She can hardly believe she will spend the next three months alone with Lucas in her small city, and she can hardly believe she and Brooke made it out at all. But they are stronger than ever and, this time around, Peyton can see the emotion in Brooke's eyes. She knows now is not the time, and she does not know when that time will be. They have survived Felix and Anna, locker graffiti that is half-true, a hell of relationship with a boy she fell in love with, and a student president election.

She is going to survive a mother, but she doesn't know that yet. Brooke will survive without Lucas, and then with him, and she can kind of feel it. What she feels the most now, though, is Peyton's arms wrapped around her, her face pressed into blonde hair. She yearns for this sometimes, in a hot shower or alone at night. She needs Peyton fiercely and she cannot give her up and she cannot have her. They have built walls to protect the one person they really need, they have built walls to keep them in and to keep them seperated. This is a broken wall, these arms tied together and faces close, but it is a special occasion.

Brooke pulls back, teary eyed, and Peyton wipes at the girl's face. There are no mascara streaks this time.

"Love you, B. Davis." The blonde tells her, fingers still on her cheek. Brooke gives her a teary smile.

"You too, Peyton." She rolls the name out of her mouth and keeps smiling. Peyton leans close and for a terrifying, completely accepted moment, Brooke thinks she is going to kiss her. She remembers Felix's dare night and the quick, satisfying peck she gave Peyton without warning. But the blonde only places her lips softly on the Brooke's cheek and whispers into her ear.

"Come back, Brooke. We need you here too, no matter how much fun you have." The words will hover with her all summer, linger in her mind when she's alone in bed between summer flings. She knows how to handle the need though, she's had enough practice. She finds another boy and latches on. Peyton's blonde hair never really fades, but sometimes she can look around it.

"I promise." Brooke responds and gives her own kiss, pressing her mouth against Peyton's cheek, lingering for a moment. They're too close and walls are completely shattered, but this is a special occasion, remember? They stand for another moment, hands on arms, before Peyton smiles big.

"Well get going girl, you gotta start sometime." She says. Brooke shakes her head and smiles.


	6. Close Call

_Close Call._

Peyton is tired of waiting, tired of the heated, hesitant looks she and Brooke share at one in the morning when they stumble to bed half-drunk or at nine in the evening when they pull back covers on opposite sides of the bed. She is tired of fixing and praying for a miracle. She is worn down. She kisses Lucas in a deserted library, she flees to Jake a hundred miles away, she falls back on every guy she can think of because she is falling hard for Brooke again and she can't handle it. Her best friend is dating her other best friend and she can't steal her away. Then again, she's never tried. Jake tells her to talk to Lucas, but she really needs to talk to Brooke. They really need to work this out before things fall apart again, before Peyton loses her again, because this time she won't be able to handle it.

Brooke moves out of her apartment and into Peyton's empty house, where she sleeps beside her every night and the blonde breaks down a little each time Brooke wraps her arms around her. It's late one night when it happens, close to twelve thirty, and there are only a couple lights on in the red-tinted room. Brooke is in boxer shorts and a wifebeater and her tan doesn't end. Peyton is changing, wearing only her bra and underwear, a shirt hanging from her hand. Brooke walks past her, heading for the bathroom, and brushes way too much skin against way too much skin and before Peyton can stop she turns and presses Brooke against the wall gently and kisses her for the fifth time in their lives; soft, meaningful, tenative but sure. It's the third time she's wanted it to really mean something. It is this kiss that means the most. It is this kiss that leads to many more. Brooke slides her hands down her arms, Peyton slides them up the girl's tank, across her stomach. They lose clothes as if they can't get rid of them fast enough.

It's a night of passion- forbidden passion, but passion nonetheless. They learn every inch they've always wanted to know. They cross every line they drew for each other, and they laugh and they touch and they kiss like they won't ever have to stop. The say "I love you" with every meaning they've ever felt.

When Peyton wakes up the next morning naked and wrapped around Brooke, she smiles first thing. She presses her lips into Brooke's neck and tries to kiss her awake. The brunette mumbles nonsense words and Peyton smiles into her neck until those gorgeous brown eyes blink open. Brooke stares at her for a second before she smiles shakily. She looks scared. Peyton wasn't expecting it, but she can deal with it. It's Brooke.

"Hey." She mumbles into her neck, already marked by Peyton's mouth and soft to her lips. Brooke looks around.

"Hi." She says. Everything looks different in the morning light, Peyton knows, but Brooke's seen her every way, at every hour. The girl's slim body is warm beneath her and she can feel the beginnings of a desire she can't quench.

"You okay?" Peyton asks and Brooke shakes her head no. Peyton's heart sinks somewhere below her chest.

"I think I should go." Brooks says, and Peyton can see she's finally remembered her boyfriend. The girl dresses quickly and doesn't say another word. For once, Peyton has no idea how to fix it. When Brooke returns later with words and fears and love, the blonde is gone. If Brooke was half-sane and not totally out of it, she would have followed Peyton to her mother's grave. But she isn't and she's not, so she flees back to Lucas again.

That's why later that night with blue lights shining down on them, Peyton speaks to the girl she loves as if the night before never happened. She doesn't mention it or allow Brooke to, and she tells the brunette she still has feelings for a boy she can't even think about, because she is lost and hurt and throwing up walls. She has a terrible fear of abandonment and for once she flees first. This time, _she_ loses _Brooke_. She makes the first cut. And Brooke lets her, because she can't see past the walls in that dim light and some insecure part of herself believes Peyton. She thinks she wasn't good enough, wasn't _enough_, and Peyton lets her.

They break again and Peyton spends her nights with her head buried under her pillow, crying herself to sleep only to dream reality.

Brooke kisses Lucas like she can find Peyton there inside him and she snipes at the blonde every chance she gets, because the blonde who helped heal so many hurts has caused the biggest one of all.

They can't see past their own issues anymore. But they still can't see past each other.


	7. Silver Lining

_Silver Lining_.

Peyton won.

Standing in her empty room with dirt on her hands and her hair mussed, she's won. Flecks of white paint splattered on her floor from a frantic paint job remain resistant to her scrubbing, even though the walls have turned another shade completely. She sleeps with his voice in her head and his arms bruising her shoulders. She's won. She has a new ache that throbs fresh in her chest and a smudged drawing of herself, and she's won. There are new locks on her doors and new locks on her heart, because people have appeared and then disapeared just as quickly. She hasn't touched Brooke in months, not even a brush in the hallway, and the hole in her heart stretches and pulls every single day. They are talking, but they're not _speaking_.

She has won.

Lucas loves her. Or at least, he's trying to. She loves him, but it's not enough anymore. Maybe it never was. It doesn't matter, because she's won, remember? She has tiny aches on her body from holding down her ex-best friend and she can still feel the brunette's arms against her own, legs tangled. It's sick and it's pathetic, but that's the closest she's been to Brooke Davis in months and she wants- she _wishes_ -for it again. It's sad and it makes her feel weak and tangled, but she can't be strong all the time. And she's still not used to having to be when it's just _Brooke_. They're supposed to be getting better. They're not.

When the door clicks open, she's surprised. If it had been a year ago, a month ago, hell, maybe even a week ago, she wouldn't have been. They've never gone this far without turning back once, so she doesn't know what comes next. She is lost and weak and Brooke is there. That part she knows, that part she's lived through all her life. She just doesn't know what happens after that; lines are smeared. She finds out when Brooke steps into her bedroom with mascara streaks lining her face; a leftover memory twisted into that vision softens them both. It takes Peyton a second to realize that there are streaks of cold and salt against her face as well. She brushes her fingers against her cheek and meets her girl's eyes.

Brooke is standing- _hovering_ -on the other side of the bed. She looks unsure, she looks broken, she looks scared. She has dirt in her hair. Peyton is everything the brunette is, with a little bit of twisted revenge and raw fear mixed in. When Brooke says her name it sounds like a prayer, when she moves it looks like a vision, and when they touch it feels like an echo. When Peyton slowly leans her back onto her bed, they are so lost they have forgotten to think at all.

And even though this will never work, this will never get off the ground, this will not fix anything, Peyton prays to God that it will never stop. They fight and they injure, they snarl and they slap, they hit back because they _cannot_ just grin and bear it. They always come back. Stumbling, fighting every step, and falling into each other- they always come back.

It's quick and it's dirty and full of angst and love and pain. It's not perfect, but then again they never were. It's not even good, but no one ever said they were. Peyton's straight blonde hair feels foreign between Brooke's fingers, but her body is so familiar she can't even distinguish it from her own. Peyton knows every inch of Brooke's curves. They collide. There is no other word for it, except, perhaps, _destruction_.

Slowly, Peyton starts to care. It creeps back in, slides between them and deep into her, refreshes the pain and then eases it, simply, with Brooke's gliding hands. They are so _good _at this now.

Brooke leaves, when they are done, which doesn't surprise either of them. Peyton stares at the ceiling while the brunette dresses and she aches a little harsher, a littler deeper. They are still mad, still shattered, still lacking. But they have broken the barrier again, and it's a good thing. It could have ended there, perhaps.

Only, Brooke pauses by the door on her way out. She moves back to Peyton like she can't stop her feet and she can't hurt herself. Like the force brimming in her eyes has manifested in her bones, her movements. She leans down and kisses the girl's mouth, softly, softly. She whispers three words into Peyton's ear. Three words that make it all worth it, that move them even closer. Peyton tightens the covers around her as Brooke walks out the door, and grasps onto the half-sentence that she took for granted for so many years.

And, somehow, she's won, with another dead mother and a crazy stalker and no Brooke.

She's won, because of three words and another beginning.

Too bad it's never quite that easy.


	8. Dreamworld

_Dreamworld._

They left godchildren, ex-lovers, married best friends, faux parents, and a wealth of memories behind. They packed up and kissed them goodbye. It's time, they both know. It's time to take the chance they always felt was out of their reach.

Sunlight pours into the room. There are no shadows in L.A., not a single secret, not a flimsy fact to be found. It's kind of a terrifying thought, because Brooke and Peyton grew up in the shadows, between secrets and concealed facts, behind masks. Here, there's only sun and blue and dreams and shining wooden floors that Peyton slides across gleefully, her curly hair swaying and reflecting the light. Brooke sets her purse down on the bar and watches, a twinkle in her eye. She is so happy it fills her up, it brims over the edge, it lights up the room more than any sun can. The floorlength windows show out onto the stretch of beach behind their apartment and send white squares of light onto the tan floor.

Their bags litter the front hallway and they are the only things that make shadows in their stark, empty apartment. They don't mind. They like stuff, but they only really need each other. Brooke steps out of her silver high heels and leaves them on the tile of the kitchen. Peyton is standing by a window, watching the tiny world displayed outside, and the teeniest smile quirks on her face. Brooke realizes, not for the first time, that they are totally alone.

There is no Lucas in L.A.

She's wearing her old Led Zepplin t-shirt, the one her uncle gave her when she was five. It was giant then and even now it hangs a little low, a little loose. Her jeans are small, she's small, and Brooke doesn't like to think about why her girl lost so much weight in the months before. This is new, this place. There are no shadows here. She's barefoot, her toes painted orange because Brooke was bored a few days before their departure. She has a scar right below her left ear from when Brooke burned her with a straightening iron in seventh grade. Peyton left her curls alone for a long time after that. She is bruised, scarred, burnt, loved, torn, soft, gorgeous, creative, and imperfect.

She is so much love that sometimes Brooke cannot help herself.

Peyton smells her before she sees her. She's memorized Brooke's scent for years, ever since she started wearing her signature expensive perfume in seventh grade, along with dark eyeliner and short skirts. Ever since the smell of it, eventually the taste of it, drove her to exhaustion, to hazy dreams and vivid memories. Brooke is the least costly addiction Peyton has experienced, and the most fufilling. She is _everything_. Even her dusty records don't capture her the way Brooke's husky voice does, the way her arms do, the way her smell does. She is escape, fufillment, brave, strong, scared, brilliant, vengeful, proud, and imperfect.

She is love, unconditional and protective, and Peyton can't help it.

The brunette stops in front of the window beside her, in their new apartment, their new life. They aren't nervous. They have- really _have_- each other now, and they've been through so much that nothing L.A. can throw will be able to shake them. They fit right into this new beginning, in front of this window with the sun starting it's slow descent into early evening. It only figures they would end up together, alone, again. They are Brooke and Peyton.

Brooke smiles slyly beside the blonde and Peyton turns her head toward her.

"So, are we gonna christen this apartment or what, P. Sawyer?" Brooke asks, meeting the other girl's eyes with a devilish glint in her own. She is joking, and Peyton chuckles, but there's a hint of _something_ beneath her tone. Between them, it's not so unusual.

"Are you sure you're up for it, B. Davis?" Peyton returns. The light flashes off their faces, off of the chain around Brooke's neck, the belt buckle on Peyton's waist. They are lit up, bright and shiny, fresh and complete. No shadows, no secrets, no lies. Nothing but fresh, salty air; nothing but empty, spartan rooms; nothing but time. Four years of it, at least. A lifetime, if they wanted. They can feel it. It stretches on, going further, reaching out, extending until they really can't even see far enough. They have time. They have so much time. They don't bother with more words.

There's the moment, slow and sweet, when they both know what they want and it's the same thing. Peyton is taller for once since Brooke is sans heels. She takes the step forward, stretches out her hand. What follows is familiar, and warm. They have no bed, no table, no couch. Just the hard, wooden floor; the cool, patterned tiles; the thick, stone counter; the steaming, tiled shower. They're Brooke and Peyton, and they really can't help it anymore. Traveling hands etching memories on skin and slender fingers against soft heat. They are alone, fresh, new, close, and imperfect. They have pictures of their friends- family, really -stowed away in unopened boxes. They're by themselves and they like it that way. Brooke's mouth covers the scar she accidentally gave Peyton six years ago. Peyton traces the lines of Brooke's body with slow, artist fingers. They're so good and it's so right.

Another beginning. Another end.


	9. The Moneymaker

_The Money Maker._

The room is thrumming, purple and off-white and dim, all cement and metal doors. It's L.A. trying to be New York but not quite getting there, with cool rooms that steam in the evening heat. Brooke is pinning the last bit of cloth back to a mannequin as the party- _her_ party -blares in the background, a wall and a flimsy door away. Another successful fashion show for Hoes over Bros, but this one comes with a price- an offer, really. Another step in the right direction, yet it feels anything but. She tightens her mouth around the pin between her lips and squints a little at the uneven dress. Sighing once, she jabs the pin back into the soft dummy and turns around, ready to return to the party, ready to drown her issues the easiest way she knows how.

Peyton's standing by the door, hands in her back pockets and eyes studying the crammed room. She couldn't come to the show, work again, work as usual, but she's here now. Brooke doesn't think it's enough anymore. Brooke catches Peyton's eyes, with brown orbs and dark masacara.

"Hey." The blonde smiles, barely, because she knows something's up. Maybe she heard some executives chattering, maybe she talked to Brooke's assistant, maybe Brooke's forgotten that the blonde knows her inside out. Every inch, every scar, every freckle. Brooke crosses the space between them and presses her lips casually against Peyton's. It's something she's grown far too used to doing.

"Hey." She murmurs into the girl's mouth, as sexy and confident as always. Peyton smiles- Brooke can _feel_ it. It's not enough.

"What's up?" Peyton asks when Brook steps back. She looks fabulous, in a metallic dress and high heels, and once again Peyton wonders if she really deserves her. She doesn't, she knows. They don't _fit_, really, but they _mesh_ so damn well. Brooke turns toward another mannequin and fools with the top draped across it. Peyton waits a minute, then two. "Brooke?" She questions softly. When the brunette turns, there are tears. There's no mascara lines this time- the wonders of waterproof mascara. There are no soft memories to fall back on.

"Peyton." Brooke mumbles, through water lines that dodge down her cheek. Peyton moves forward, but Brooke steps back and that's when Payton realizes this is far deeper than she thought. This is far more complicated. "They want me to leave." The blonde frowns.

"Who's they?" She asks. Brooke's fingers remain on the mannequin, on soft, green fabric.

"Honestly?...my mom." Brooks answers, and she seems thirteen again, still yearning and still controlled. Still tightly bound. Peyton can't-

"But-" But Brooke's mouth is on hers, and the clink of falling pins sounds to their left. Brooke's fingers are beneath her shirt, suddenly, hot and soft against her stomach, silky and warm on her back. They push the material up, but Peyton shoves it back down just as quickly. She tears her mouth away. "Brooke we can't just fix this with- with sex. It doesn't work- Brooke." The brunette is feet away, biting her nails, still half-crying. They can fix this, Peyton knows. She can go to New York. It's not that bad, not that impossible.

"They want me to be single. And straight. Attainable. There's all this bullshit about appearances and-" Brooke lets the truth spill out of her lips, and it comes easier when Peyton's eyes are boring into her's. She can't say it to her face, not really. She's so _angry_, so _hopeless_, already. It's stupid, a stupid ultimatum, but it's her career.

"Your mom, you mean. Your mom wants that." Peyton interrupts.

"And what she wants, she gets." Brooke says. Silence. The words keep coming, keep spilling, but the conversation ends there. The decision ends there. Brooke is foolish enough to think she can get along without the blonde by her side. She is foolish enough to think the other girl will always be waiting. They have learned important things, they have learned each other, but they always underestimate the ability of the world to come inbetween. They keep fighting, fucking, yearning, for days.

But in all reality, it's just silence.

Brooke leaves on a 3 p.m. flight alone. Peyton sits in their shiny apartment with her hands on her knees and an old Joy Divison album on the stereo. She goes to her crappy assistant to the assistant music label job every morning and she stops crying after a few days. She's tired of it.

But, really, she just knows that Brooke will eventually come back.

She doesn't know how to doubt her anymore.


	10. 15

_15._

Brooke presses her fingertips into the soft leather of her seat, watches her carefully manicured nails press half-circles into the material, and feels the tight excitement run its course through her body. Every nerve in her body is thrumming to the hum of the plane, to the soft music playing in her ears, to the words she's been running through her mind for the past three hours.

"_And I miss you. I guess I just miss all of it."_

She looks out the window at nothing but clouds. She ignores a stewardess. She is so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she kind of forgets who she is. She'd say she felt like she was floating on a cloud, except she really is. It seems too good to be real- she's half-afraid she'll wake up to find she'd dreamed it all up. That thought startles her a little, with its harsh realities, with its cruel implications.

She's been lonely for so long. She's been without Peyton for too long. The loss aches, still, even after so many hours, days, years. Two, to be exact. Two long, empty, successful years that she spent working her ass off- literally and figuratively. She's back, better than ever. Cooler and in control, and still a little bit wild. She thought New York had beaten it out of her, but here she is, flying to Tree Hill only three hours after a desperate conversation.

The plane lands an hour later. Brooke is convinced she's half crazy by then, half crazy with thoughts of Peyton, with the need and the cliches she's become. She needs to _touch_ her.

They meet at the luggage claim, a crash of arms and tears and grins, they latch onto each other because it's been _years_. Two and half painfully long years since they've touched at all, since they've pressed lips and rubbed skin- overlooking, of course, the tantalizing dreams that haunt them into the early mornings. Brooke presses her face into Peyton's blonde hair and pretends- for half an instant of bliss–things never changed. She erases the past two years in one swift hug, she erases the past eight, she erases a lifetime of memories and drags herself back to a time under a bridge and a sweet, sticky first kiss when she was fifteen.

She pulls away and they come rushing back.

The cab ride to their new house is almost silent. They brush hands over the leather and leave them there and they don't even try to figure out what that means, what they are. Ex-girlfriends, best friends, soulmates- it all ends the same way. They're together again. They're touching again; talking. _Speaking._

They're Brooke and Peyton.

They pick different bedrooms and sip wine on the balcony. It's from another time, this peace, but they pull it all back together, they tug it closer. They smile over the rims of wineglasses. It's all a process of coming back together. They know that, by now.

They go to sleep alone. Peyton dreams about Lucas. Brooke dreams about Rachel lost in New York. They both wake up in the dead of night, fifteen hours after a decisive phone call, and are somehow not surprised to meet each other in the kitchen. The clock says 3:10 and Brooke makes them hot tea. Peyton pulls down two mugs.

It doesn't really matter, then, what happens. They're so final. Complete. Brooke and Peyton.


	11. Under the Blacklight

_Under the Blacklight._

She sleeps, a little bit of fuzz on her head and her thumb in her mouth, her ankles crossed and her face pressed against a little, purple horse. Brooke tugs the blanket up over her and runs a lone finger across her forehead. She's careful not to wake her. She looks so precious and breakable lying in that expensive crib. Brooke wants one. She wants that love and that need. God, she fucking wants one.

The little girl keeps sleeping, peacefully, and Brooke pulls away. The baby's leaving tomorrow with two good hearts- her own and Brooke's. And the brunette is so tied around the feeling of _loss_ in her chest that she stares for a while, memorizes the tiny girl's face, wonders if she'll ever see her again. Knows she won't.

She steps back. She eases herself onto the couch and looks out the window. In a few long minutes, the front door clicks open. Brooke's eyes don't even flicker.

_People always leave_.

Peyton slides onto the couch beside her. She holds that careful position- just close enough to _ache_, but not close enough to ease it. She's perfected that position. She's chiseled and changed it into an art. Brooke's eyes remain focused, caught somewhere Peyton can't see. The blonde stills her fingers by her side.

Finally, after Peyton has curled her legs beneath her, has studied Brooke's far away look, has fallen just a centimeter further and she didn't think that was possible, Brooke turns her head toward the blonde. Her heart thumps a little faster, like always, and maybe forever.

They are so alone. So left out by a world composed of solid(rocky) relationships, and marriage and careers and love (_cliches_), and they're here, in their shared apartment with a borrowed baby, with borrowed time. They're utterly unconventional. Brooke knows what it feels like to feel forever- and she knows what it's like to lose it. She's worn, a bit scarred, and she's learned hesitation.

Peyton tilts her head to meet Brooke's eyes.

_But sometimes they come back_.

Brooke smiles an absentminded, sorrowful quirk of her mouth and leans forward, resting her cheek on Peyton's bony shoulder. She doesn't remember the time passed between them. Peyton doesn't pull, doesn't tug, just places her arm over Brooke's shoulder in that way no one else can. She has perfected her position.

Brooke leans in, closes her eyes, and drapes her arm across Peyton's stomach. A tiny ache blooms in her chest; it's almost tradition. Peyton smells like Lucas. Brooke knows she smells like baby powder. Brooke loves her _desperately_. Somewhere deep and torn, she wonders if it will always be like that.

"I want one." Brooke says, lips moving against Peyton's neck, her words muffled. The thought has been floating through her head for days. It means something else now.

"I know." Is the murmured reply. Peyton presses it into Brooke's soft hair. Here in this silent living room, that tiny life fast asleep, their desperate love entangling every emotion, Brooke tilts her head up, kisses Peyton on the lips softly. Peyton kisses her back, surprisingly, slides a couple fingers along her face. Brooke flushes.

"I forgot how it felt to kiss you." She breathes as she shifts positions, moving on top of the blonde girl. She's perfected this position. She leans back in, every kiss as soft and fragile as a single white petal, every movement illuminated by dim, warm lights and invading moonshine. She halts, suddenly, and bends her face into Peyton's neck, feels the girl's pulse racing against her cheek. Brooke chuckles a little.

"What?" Peyton murmurs, trying to get a look at her. Brooke shakes her head and pulls back. She stands and offers her hand.

"We have an audience." She smirks, tilting her head back to the child sleeping behind her. Peyton smiles her own tiny, amused smile. Brooke grabs her hand, yanks her up, and kisses her _hard_. "I love you, P. Sawyer." She states, she demands, as she presses kisses along Peyton's jaw.

"God, Brooke, I love you, too." Peyton manages, a lilt of laughter in her tone. They make it to the bedroom. No lights, no street noise, no loud silence. Nothing reminiscent of a lifetime of shielded feelings and smothered kisses. Nothing that needed to be quiet or calm or even controlled. Nothing hidden.

And, yet.

Brooke kisses Peyton beneath her ear. Tugs the girl closer, slides her leg over the blonde's. Peyton rolls even closer, burying her face in Brooke's dark hair. Its well past two in the morning. They're still fully clothed, fading off to sleep.

It's anticlimactic, honestly. It's anti-_them_ and they know it. They embrace it. They wrap and tug and smother, because they've been separating for a long time. Because they need something different these days. Something _final_.

They've found it.

They've been Brooke. And. Peyton. for years.

Almost as long as they've been Brooke and Peyton.

But what they really need, what they really want, what they've managed for only a few short years, a few long, scattered moments, a few lifetimes of memories, is to be BrookeandPeyton.

They are, right now; and will be for longer than they know.

BrookeandPeyton.

end.


End file.
